


Breakfast

by Laryna6



Series: Noblesse Works [12]
Category: Noblesse (Manhwa)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, The Household - Freeform, and the kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 19:00:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laryna6/pseuds/Laryna6
Summary: The morning of one of their precious, peaceful days.





	Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cokaserbia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cokaserbia/gifts).



> Takeo giftfic for meny-sempai of tumblr as part of the Noblesse Gift Exchange. I hope they like it!

Takeo’s eyes sprang open. A glance at the clock confirmed that he’d woken up at the regular time. Standing up, he navigated the piles of equipment Tao had stored in his room to the closet and quickly got dressed. 

He had some training planned for this morning at the range in one of the basements, and after that he would need to hurry to disassemble and clean his babies. Frankenstein was making breakfast this morning, and although it wouldn’t be served until Raizel-nim finished picking out his clothes for the day, Takeo didn’t want to be late. 

A knock on the door and Tao stuck his head in. “Good morning,” Takeo said with a smile.

“Morning!” Tao chirped in reply as he headed for one of the piles and with an, “Aha!” snatched up one of the pieces of electronics. “Boss has already started cooking, I could smell it from the hall.” 

“Mmm.” Takeo wondered what he was making, besides Raizel-nim’s ramyeon of course. “Frankenstein and Miss Seira’s cooking is always excellent.” So different from the Union’s rations. 

“They spoil us.” Tao grinned just a little fiendishly.

Takeo inclined his head with a soft smile. This place, these people… so kind to disposable experiments. 

He would defend them with everything he had. That wasn’t enough, not yet, so he would do his best to become stronger, no matter what it took. 

Speaking of which, “Tao, do you want to join me at the range?” Tao sometimes worked on zapping distance targets with the lightning directed by his whips, but Takeo doubted he would today since he was industriously digging through another pile. He seemed to be working on more than one thing this morning. 

Tao shook his head, finding another piece and tucking it under his arm with the first three. “Nope, working on more cameras for surveillance around the city this morning. Don’t want to miss breakfast!” 

“Do you want me to help you place them before school starts?” 

“Thanks! With you and M-21 we should be able to get them set up while the kids are walking to school,” Tao replied, heading for the door. 

Takeo followed him, carrying his guns, and went down the stairs as Tao headed for his room to get to work. 

“Good morning,” Frankenstein said, humming cheerfully as he chopped something on the cutting board, putting the knife down momentarily to stir a pot. Takeo could see three pans on the stovetop’s other burners.

“Good morning, sir,” Takeo said with a slight bow. He smiled. “It smells wonderful.” 

“I should certainly hope so.” Frankenstein dismissed the compliment: perhaps he felt that as old as he was, it would be embarrassing if he wasn’t an amazing cook by now. “What’s Tao up to?” he wondered. “He’s normally down here asking to taste test by now.”

“He’s working on building some equipment.” 

“M-21 and Regis headed downstairs to train, and Miss Seira went to supervise them,” Frankenstein told him. “Will you be joining them?”

Takeo shook his head. As valuable as group training was, if Miss Seira was supervising them then M-21 and Regis intended to be rough with each other, practice for drawing the enemy’s attention. Miss Seira was fast enough to intervene if either of them was about to take a serious hit: it wouldn’t do to have M-21 missing work or Regis school while they recovered. Takeo’s role in that sort of combat was partially to be a distraction, and he didn’t want to distract them and keep them from pulling a blow that otherwise might end up with one of them injured. “I was planning to work on my marksmanship.”  
Frankenstein nodded, sipping from a small dish before adding a dash of something to one of the pans. It sizzled and Takeo inhaled again as one of the delicious scents in the air grew stronger. The meals in this household made him grateful for enhanced senses. “I’m fortunate to have such hard-working employees.”

“Yes, sir,” Takeo said, a promise to keep doing his best, for everything he had to protect. “I’ll be up again for breakfast,” he promised: he wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

A hum from Frankenstein as Takeo touched the wall and the concealed elevator revealed itself. 

The range was huge: Takeo was amazed all over again that Frankenstein could conceal excavating such huge spaces under his house. The Union barely bothered to conceal building its own bases: governments wouldn’t make an issue of it if they knew what was good for them. Eliminating any low-level law enforcement personnel who weren’t briefed and came to investigate a criminal organization’s base was an advantage: it reminded governments of their place and how all they could do was take the deaths of their agents. 

It was true that no country could do anything about it if Frankenstein decided to set up in their country, but the KSA had no knowledge of Frankenstein, which ruled out concealing himself as one of the Union factions that shouldn’t be revealed to other Union factions, unless the unfortunate host country wanted turf wars with their people as collateral damage. 

Well, when Frankenstein had concealed himself from the Union for this long, a government really had no hope of catching him napping. 

Working with and cleaning his guns always calmed Takeo: at this point he was certain there was conditioning involved, for his preference to remain so strong when guns were far from an optimum weapon for fights with enhanced humans. But every time he thought of retraining with some other weapon… Their ‘choice’ really was worth nothing compared to making sure Krans had a varied skillset, so why give them an illusion? Because assassin teams of the rank they were supposed to be really did give their members a choice? 

Takeo shook his head. It was useless to wonder why Dr. Aris did what she did to them. She’d made him think he had a sister for her own amusement. 

He’d wanted to die when she revealed the truth, wanted to die for all the people he’d killed not knowing that the reason he stayed alive to kill them was a lie, but now he had a sister in Miss Seira, and three brothers to live for in Tao, M-21 and Regis. 

And Frankenstein had built him guns and made him special bullets so he could pull his weight on the battlefield. He would never forget Frankenstein’s kindness, because kindness it was. 

Everyone in this house was so kind, when for so long Takeo had thought he was the only one who cared about sparing lives instead of taking them. The warm feeling in his chest wasn’t just from his babies. 

The elevator took a few seconds to come to him: he wasn’t surprised to see that he’d gotten back to the first floor just after Miss Seira, M-21 and Regis. “Good morning,” he greeted them. 

“Good morning,” said Regis and Miss Seira with nods and, “Morning,” came from M-21, who headed for the stairs to replace his shirt and dress for the workday. 

“Perfect timing,” Frankenstein said. “Regis, Takeo, would you mind setting the table?”

Seeing that Regis was going for the silverware drawer, Takeo got plates first and then went back to the kitchen for glasses as Frankenstein carried fragrant, steaming plate after plate to the table.  
Raizel-nim came down the stairs, followed respectfully by M-21 and Tao. 

“Good morning, Master,” Frankenstein greeted with a bow, and everyone followed with their greetings. 

Raizel gave them a dignified nod of acknowledgement and sat at the head of the table, Miss Seira bringing him tea a moment later. 

Everyone else took their seats, Takeo between Miss Seira and Tao as Frankenstein brought out his Master’s bowl of ramyeon and then joined them. When Raizel picked up his chopsticks, that was everyone’s signal to begin serving themselves from the plates of food in the middle of the table. 

Tao’s chopsticks flashed, quickly gathering some of everything and beginning to gobble it down, while M-21 took a few things he recognized first and Takeo started with what he didn’t recognize. Everything Frankenstein made was fantastic. 

Regis was frowning at Tao, but he made a dismissive sound, having given up on chastising him. Tao blinked at him, cheeks puffed out as he stuffed himself. Tao could eat elegantly, and he had at first when they came here, buttering up whoever cooked with every other bite, but Takeo thought Tao’s sheer enthusiasm for the food was just as big a compliment as his silver tongue could manage. 

M-21 focused on the food, minding his own business, and Miss Seira and Raizel-nim did the same, only more elegantly. Frankenstein seemed pleased as he ate, every bit as elegant as the nobles. 

“Thanks for the food!” Tao said when the rest of them were still eating. “M-21, I have some equipment for us to set up, so come upstairs after you’re done eating, ok?” He carried his plate to the kitchen and then ran upstairs. 

Regis shook his head. “He could take the time to appreciate the cook’s hard work instead of bolting it down and running off.”

“No,” Frankenstein said, “His enthusiasm is its own compliment. Isn’t that right, Miss Seira?”

Seira nodded. 

“So Takeo, Regis, you’ll be doing the dishes,” Frankenstein decreed. 

“I already told Tao I’d help him set up the equipment,” Takeo said with an apologetic smile at Regis. 

“I will help,” Miss Seira said. “Since I didn’t assist Frankenstein with the cooking this morning.” Frankenstein had already taken care of all the pans and utensils he used for the cooking, it was just the serving trays and utensils and what they used to eat, but Frankenstein had a rule that the cook didn’t do the cleanup after the meal. That meant that normally Miss Seira was exempt from dish duty, when she assisted Frankenstein while he taught her how to make various dishes, but today she had helped M-21 and Regis instead of taking the opportunity to advance her knowledge of cooking. 

“Miss Seira is always so responsible.” Frankenstein smiled at her approvingly and there was a slight blush high on Miss Seira’s cheeks. 

Tao directed them through their earpieces to where he wanted the motion detector/cameras set up, and after that they hurried towards the school, jumping down into an alley so they could nonchalantly wait at an intersection for the kids along with Regis, Miss Seira and Raizel-nim to catch up and walk with them the rest of the way to school. 

“Good morning Ajussi,” Shinwoo greeted M-21 as Ikhan greeted his hyung. 

“Good morning,” Takeo smiled at all of them. It was so nice, to just do this every morning. Walk with them, protect them, be greeted like friends and precious people. It made him feel warm, and ever more determined to do everything he could to protect the life they had here. 

The school day was peaceful, except for one of the students spraining her ankle on the soccer field trying to impress Miss Seira, who was watching the match from the side of the field as the nobles were excused from PE. Takeo carried her to the nurse’s office, glad this wasn’t one of the students with a crush on him. 

Shinwoo had martial arts practice, so the kids weren’t coming over this afternoon. That meant that Takeo, Tao, M-21 and Regis would be flying out with Frankenstein to the island for some quick training while Miss Seira stayed home to protect the school and Raizel-nim. 

Frankenstein was always tough on them, but Takeo wouldn’t have it any other way, not when he had so much to protect. 

He let himself hope that the Union wouldn’t attack today, that they could have a normal, peaceful, precious day, just like this, with all of them safe and well… well, battered (Frankenstein wouldn’t go easy on them) but alive and quick to heal. So they could do their duty again tomorrow, protect this school and their home and everyone in them. 

Tomorrow, and the day after, and as many of these precious, precious days as they could snatch from the jaws of the Union.


End file.
